When Leadership Leads to Loathing: The Effect of Culturally (In)Congruent Leadership on Employee Contempt and Voluntary Work Behaviors

Abstract

This article suggests that contempt ― a proclivity towards loathing others ― as an emotional response, can arise as a consequence of culturally incongruent leadership, i.e. leader behaviors and actions that do not comply with follower-held, culturally derived expectations and values. Outcomes of contempt were also studied by hypothesizing that contempt, when experienced in response to a situation of culturally incongruent leadership, can cause followers to reduce their display of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) while engaging in deviant behaviors. The model was tested in a sample of 348 follower-level employees using structural equation modeling. Empirical results largely support theoretical hypotheses. Culturally congruent leadership was negatively related to contempt, while contempt was positively related to deviant behaviors and negatively related to OCB. The results contribute to the understudied field of contempt research, and suggest that leaders faced with cultural diversity may be well advised to adapt their behaviors to the local cultural values to stimulate follower OCB rather than deviance. Introduction Emotions are everywhere in organizations – in leader-follower relationships, in teams, and between colleagues (Barsade & Gibson, 2007). Over the past 20 years, organizational scholars have increasingly recognized the importance of understanding how emotions affect organizational behaviors (Ashkanasy et al., 2017). Positive emotions ― such as joy and gratitude ― are generally viewed as having positive effects on performance at both individual, group, and organizational levels, while negative emotions ― such as anger, fear and shame ― are largely associated with negative behaviors (Barsade & Gilson, 2007). Thus, understanding and managing the events where emotions may arise is relevant to effective organizational functioning. This article focuses on one such event ― culturally congruent leadership (CCL). Research that views leadership through the lens of culture has resulted in detailed knowledge about the characteristics of leadership styles in different countries (e.g., Hofstede, 1980). The underlying logic of this research stream is that leading in accordance with important follower-held and culturally derived values is effective, and this is what we refer to as CCL. An example: On the basis of cultural idiosyncrasies, the typical leadership style in Germany is quite different from the typical leadership style in Italy. If a German leader wants to be effective in Italy, he/she will likely have to adapt behaviors and actions to the local expectations to leaders, thus displaying culturally congruent leadership. This view on leadership suggests an adjustment from the one-size-fits-all, universal solutions that have BERIT SUND, PHD BERGEN, NORWAY DR. OECON. RUNE LINES BERGEN, NORWAY dominated the leadership literature (e.g., R. House, Javidan, Hanges, & Dorfman, 2002; Javidan, Dorfman, de Luque, & House, 2006). The CCL literature builds on research on value congruence, which provides empirical and theoretical links to a range of positive outcomes (e.g., O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986; Ostroff, Shin, & Kinicki, 2005). However, relatively little, if any, research has documented emotional outcomes of CCL. Thus, little is known about the emotional experience of CCL at the level of individual employees: What does the employee feel when faced with a leader who acts in a way that conflicts with culturally derived values that the employee holds dear ― and what does he/she feel if the leader’s behaviors mirror important values? And of equal importance: What behaviors will the employee display in such situations? In the present article, we deal with this question by focusing on the discrete, negative emotion contempt. This emotion remains under-studied within emotion research, with very few articles to date examining its effects on leadership processes or organizational behavior. Noting the lack of research on contempt, Pelzer (2005, p. 1219) compares the study on this emotion as taking “a glimpse into the bottomless pit of human emotion.” However, keeping in mind the view on negative emotions as adverse for effective organizational functioning, a better understanding of the behavioral implications of contempt is arguably important. On this background, the present article argues that contempt is a likely outcome of culturally incongruent leadership. We build and test a model, illustrated in Figure 1, depicting a direct relationship between contempt and two types of voluntary organizational behavior: Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and employee deviance. Our results indicate that cultural congruence in leadership may ultimately cause followers to ramp up their display of OCB while holding back on their display of deviant behaviors. Thus, the proposed model makes several theoretical and practical contributions. First, it adds to the contempt literature by exploring some behavioral consequences of this emotion. Second, it contributes to theory on emotions in organizations by examining how events of culturally congruent or incongruent leadership can trigger contempt and subsequent voluntary organizational behaviors of different valences. In doing so, it answers recent calls for more research on the link between negative emotions, employee proactivity, and destructive outcomes (Lebel, 2017). This has important practical implications for leaders faced with cultural diversity among their subordinates, as failure to lead in accordance with their values ultimately may lead to deviance. Third, the article adds to the literature on culturally congruent leadership by exploring the emotional side of such leadership. Contempt, Culturally Congruent Leadership, and Voluntary Work Behaviors: A Short Review of the Extant Literature Emotions in the Workplace The “affective revolution” in organizational behavior, a term coined by Barsade et al. (2003:3), has arguably permeated also the study of leadership. Theories like transformational leadership, charismatic leadership, and leader-member exchange recognize the impact of emotions on the leadership process (Gooty, Connelly, Griffith, & Gupta, 2010). This mirrors a broader tendency where interest in preferred leadership styles has shifted away from the traditional view on the leader as an almost heroic figure concerned with hierarchy, toward a leader increasingly focused on relational sensitivity (Cunliffe & Eriksen, 2011; Glasø & Einarsen, 2006). Emotions are increasingly viewed as functional and adaptively useful (Frijda, 2000; Niedenthal & Brauer, 2012). For example, the concept of emotional intelligence has gained enormous researcher attention since the 1990s. Although debated, the idea that some people have the skill or ability to understand and manage own and others’ emotions and can use this for adaptive purposes (e.g., Goleman, 1995; Joseph & Newman, 2010; Locke, 2005; Mayer & Geher, 1996; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008), at the very least indicates the role emotions may play in wellfunctioning leader-follower relationships. Infusing the entire organization from top to bottom, emotions may prove to be vital to effective leadership and organizational functioning (Ashkanasy, 2003). For example, the emotion happiness has been linked to various measures of good organizational functioning, including work performance, creativity, turnover intentions, supervisor evaluations, prosocial behaviors, and job satisfaction (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005), and employee productivity (Oswald, Proto & Sgroi, 2015). While emotions in the workplace is no longer an emerging research field, it is still characterized by a relative lack of agreement on how emotions should be defined and differentiated from other affective constructs such as moods, affect, and affect-laden constructs like job satisfaction (Briner & Kiefer, 2005). Gooty et al. (2010:980) note that “In sum, emotions are transient, intense reactions to an event, person or entity,” thereby setting emotions apart from these other constructs that tend to be of a longer-lasting nature. Emotions are believed to involve several different components (Briner & Kiefer, 2005; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), and this provides some insight into how emotions are elicited and why. Emotions have a cognitive component (e.g., Lazarus, 1991a; Roseman & Evdokas, 2004; Scherer, 2001), which means they result from cognitive appraisals of person-environment relationships. Emotions are generated if this relationship has significance for personal well-being, here viewed as the attainment of personal values or goals. If the relationship is characterized by goal or value incongruence between the person and the environment, negative emotions will arise. Congruence, on the other hand, will result in positive emotions. Thus, it is impossible to understand emotions without simultaneously understanding what is personally important (Lazarus, 1991a, 1991b). “We don’t become emotional about unimportant things, but about values and goals to which we have made a strong commitment” (Lazarus, 1991b, p. 819). Most emotion researchers appear to make the assumption that discrete emotions have specific action tendencies (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), and these tendencies enable the person to adapt to changes in the environment (Briner & Kiefer, 2005; Levenson, 1999). In this way, emotions serve to shift behaviors so the individual can adjust to the new situation (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Emotions lead to different bodily changes and as such have a distinct physiological component (Briner & Kiefer, 2005; Frijda, 1993; Scherer, 2001). Emotions also have an important communicative and social function as they enable us to let others know how we are feeling and how they should respond (Briner & Kiefer, 2005). Researchers have long tried to categorize emotions in an attempt to guide future research efforts, which has led to lists of basic or primary, discrete emotions a